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Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Beginnings--and Endings

It's spring by the calendar but we are being reminded that just because we humans decide something should happen, nature may not always cooperate. Huge piles of snow from our record breaking storms are covering the beds where crocus and daffodils should be poking up. But I decided to manipulate nature a bit by bringing in some forsythia branches, and my attempts at human control did work this time: the first blooms obediently appeared by March 20.

Our magnolias had been brutalized by ice falling off the roof, much to my dismay. I tried the same trick with them, and the broken branches gave us a brief glimpse of the beauty that might have been.

And I welcomed spring with a new project--making some tiny pieces, about 9" x 5" that, unlike the other projects I am working on, I can finish quickly and perhaps sell. On the first day of spring I began happily to stitch down the shapes that I had played with the day before until I like the way they looked. Confidence goeth before a disaster. Here is what it looked like after two hours of sewing with a little over half the shapes sewn down:

The horizontal stitching was fighting with the vertical. I thought for a while that more vertical stitching would help but this piece was just never going to create an integrated whole. And so it becomes another piece in the learning from experience pile. And I will begin again.

And, if you have found me, after my hiatus from blogging, thanks for the company.